Color: Adults grey or yellowish grey to brown in color with yellow fins. At night it is brown to red in color. With or without black side spot that can be turned on or off at will. Generally silvery white with yellow fins, and usually a black spot below the middle of the dorsal fin that is intersected by the lateral line.

Dorsal profile of head gently to moderately sloped. Preorbital width about equal to eye diameter. Preopercular notch and knob poorly developed. Scale rows on back rising obliquely above lateral line. Height 2.7-2.9, 3.4-3.6 in length with caudal. Head 2.5-2.8, 3.1-3.5 in length with caudal. Eye 3.9-4.9, 1.5-1.8 in snout and more than somewhat convex inter orbital space. Mouth somewhat oblique. Maxillary to below front border of pupil or not so far in large specimens. Narrow bands of small teeth in the jaws, with an outer series of larger ones, some of which near symphysis of upper jaw are strong canines. Small teeth on vomer in a narrow bent band, forming an angle, and on palatines in an elongate band. Head naked anteriorly. scales beginning on occiput above hind border of eye with a distinct supra-temporal band of small scales. Six or seven transverse rows of scales on preoperculum. Posterior and inferior preopercular limb naked. Hind border and lower border of preoperculum rugose. Preopercular notch very shallow and indistinct. Longitudinal rows of scales above lateral line oblique, ascending to dorsal profile, those below lateral line parallel to the axis of the body. About 51-56 transverse rows of scales above, and about 45-47 rows below lateral line. Dorsal spines slender. First spine less than half length of second, which is shorter than third. Third spine longest, equal to snout. soft dorsal somewhat rounded, lower than or as high as spinous part. First anal spine much less than half length of second, which is about as long as third one and equal to diameter of eye. Soft anal truncate, much higher than spinous part. Pectorals half length of snout shorter than head. Ventrals somewhat less than head without snout, ventral spine about equal to snout. Caudal somewhat emarginate.

Kuo, RS and Shao, KT (1999) Species composition of fish in the coastal zones of the Tsengwen estuary, with descriptions of five new records from Taiwan Zoological Studies 38(4) 391-404 Available at - NIO, Goa

Lakshmi, A and Sundaramanickam, A (2011) Biodiversity of reef ichthyofauna in Cuddalore coast, southeast coast of
India International Journal of Environmental Sciences Integrated Publishing Association 1(7) 1616-1621 Available at - ipublishing.co.in/jesvol1no12010/EIJES2108.pdf